Question

Topic: E-Marketing

E-mail Database Reporting: Audience Categories

Posted by brian on 5/1/2008 at 3:44 PM ET 25 Points
We have a need for reporting on the performance of audience categories in our e-mail campaigns. For example, we push an e-newsletter out to one large group and would like to generate a report based on that push that breaks the recipients down into (for example) profession and state of residence.

The vendor that currently handles the database gave me an $8,000 estimate on creating a report that delivers this information. I’m perplexed by this because I would think that programs that handle databases and send broadcast e-mails should have a reporting function beyond the standard “open,” “click-through” and “bounce” rates.

This vendor is a small, local company, so the question is, do large e-mail distribution providers have some sort of reporting function for “list categories” built in? Or would we have to pay for a custom solution from them as well?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 5/1/2008 at 4:54 PM Member
    Hi Brian,

    Hope all is well. I understand that you are looking for a service provider who could probably help you to provide a complete report on you marketing campaign. We at Optinbuilders would definitely will be able to provide you with such email marketing solution. We are an online marketing firm and we provide complete email marketing solution. Could you provide me with you contact information so that I can take you through our email tracking platform. We would be able to roll out email campaign based on your target criteria and would be able to provide you with the complete tracking report. To contact me through email go to my profile.

    Look forward to hearing from you.

    Regards,

    Mark
  • Posted by brian on 5/2/2008 at 10:27 AM Author
    Responding to Mike’s posting…

    Thanks for your response.

    Actually, all or most of the data is in place. In this particular case we’re in the process of working with the vendor to clean up many of the fields, but that’s a separate project from the actual report. In cases where the data is not yet known, I’ve asked for it to be reported as “unknown” to assist in cleaning the data. The cost estimate assumes that the data exists, so that won't impact this project.
  • Posted on 5/2/2008 at 10:32 AM Member
    Hey Brian,

    hope all is well. Do you have any updates for me ? If you could throw some more lights on the project then it would be helpful for us to provide you more details and how best we could help youi in this project.

    Look forward to hearing from you.
  • Posted by Inbox_Interactive on 5/5/2008 at 9:59 AM Accepted
    I think it would be easier for you to build those special reports outside the email marketing system. Do your send to everyone, then download the data and slice and dice offline.

  • Posted on 5/5/2008 at 1:15 PM Accepted
    We use mailbuild for our newsletters. I get back all the reports that you're looking for.
    www.mailbuild.com
    it's free to use and is well worth taking a look at.
  • Posted by brian on 5/6/2008 at 3:08 PM Author
    Thanks so much to everyone for the advice. Most responses contributed to my solution. It turns out that it's not feasible to split the lists ahead of time, although that would be a great idea when you have only a few categories. For our needs, we have too many professional categories for that to work. Plus, we may need to drill into the fields even further down the road (such as splitting by ZIP codes).

    I was able to give Mailbuild a quick check and realized another company I worked with used it. I think it's a nice solution and offers a lot of flexibility. It may even offer the reporting that I'm looking for, but I will need to test it out.

    Over the past week we've been able to better define our goals and will be proceeding with the vendor, although with a revised estimate. Thanks!


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